Currently there exist numerous systems for generating image presentations such as slide shows. Such systems typically fall into one of two broad categories. The first category can be described as completely or substantially automated. The second category can best be described as manually intensive.
In the automated category, the available systems typically take a collection of images as an input and present a slide show (or some other image display) as an output. Some automated systems attempt in some fashion to analyze a large number of trial image layouts and somehow select the “best” of these trial layouts to present as an optimized display of images in a viewing region. However, many such automated solutions dispense with layouts of multiple images and simply present a single image at a time. Such automatically generated slide shows are typically very basic and repetitious, only occasionally adding some very basic image manipulation, such as panning or zooming in and out or moving an image. No real user input is usually required (or often allowed) other than the decision to generate the slide show. The output from such an automated system is typically predictable and formulaic, and as such, the resulting presentation style can become boring and repetitive and bland to a viewer after watching only a few slide shows (and sometimes after watching only several slides within a single slide show). Additionally, variation, such as it is often tends to distract from image content, rather than complementing it or emphasizing it.
In the manually intensive category, the user goes from having no control (or almost no control) over the image presentation to having nearly 100% control of every aspect of image presentation. For example, in such a manually intensive system, a user will typically need to control all or nearly all aspects of image selection, image positioning (x-positioning, y-positioning, and z-ordering), image movement, order of image presentation, image zoom, image scale, image pan, speed of presentation, and other such minutia for each image layout of a presentation. There is typically no automation or intelligent assistance by the computer system or program that is used to generate the slide show. This means that there is usually a very steep learning curve for the use of such a system. Therefore a novice user will typically generate only vary basic, often repetitive, slide shows. To generate more advanced slide shows, the user must invest a significant amount of time in training, practice, or both, and even still, capabilities of the user are deterministic of the presentation output. That is to say, user skill at using the image presentation system or program determines the quality of the slide show or other image presentation output. Therefore, in a manually intensive system it is not uncommon for a skilled user to spend hours (or longer) creating a slide show or other presentation from a group of images or video clips.
With the rapid rise in use of digital cameras and powerful viewing devices such as personal computers, media centers, and digital projectors, the need to display image content in an attractive manner is becoming increasingly prevalent. However, as described, current systems for generating image presentations, such as slide shows, typically produce bland results when automated or else require significant effort and time on the part of a user.
The drawings referred to in this description should not be understood as being drawn to scale unless specifically noted.